Tag Archives: equality

In light of recent news events, it seems that sexist stereotypes and misogynistic behaviors continue to be supported and trivialized in our society. The “boys will be boys” attitude persists in all age groups, socioeconomic classes, and cultures despite attempts that have been made in the last few decades to eradicate it. What can we, as parents and teachers, do to combat the many chauvinistic messages that bombard our children every day?

Inspiring Girls, an international organization based in the UK, has an idea. Noting that many of our children are exposed at an early age to a multitude of animated characters, the organization also found that only 29% of these potential role models are female. In a revealing video included on the resources page, a classroom teachers asks her students to draw people in several different professions such as a firefighter and a surgeon. 61 pictures were drawn as men. 5 were women.

The #redrawthebalance campaign from Inspiring Girls wants us to bring awareness to this disturbing example of gender stereotypes, and to help our students see that women can be strong, intelligent, and hard-working as well. You can find a workbook on the resources page that can be printed with pages that prompt students to draw their own characters, who will hopefully be more representative of themselves. There are also downloadable posters of characters such as “Carla the Coder,” who are female.

We’ve come a long way since we had to fight for the right for women to vote. But all we have to do is take a look at the headlines to see that it hasn’t been far enough.

Like this:

I love visiting the Kuriositas blog for unusual stories about animals, vivid descriptions of places all over the world, and their incredible video picks. Yesterday, I discovered the short video, Cogs, on their site. Directed by Laurent Witz for AIME (an organization dedicated to education equality), Cogs is one of those small packages that deliver a huge gift. In this gorgeous animation, a world is shown that is ruled by a factory that produces only two kinds of people – and they can only travel on their separate tracks. It is a sad, but unfortunately very appropriate, metaphor for the world’s drastically restrained and disparate educational systems. The film has a hauntingly beautiful theme sung by Mariot Pejon, and composed by Olivier Defradat. In less than three minutes, we experience melancholy that gradually evolves into hope. It is a wonderful inspiration to all of us who believe that every child should receive a quality education.